The problem with British tennis players? They lack sole. The Indian Wells Masters began with Andy Murray and the strange case of the sweat-soaked sneakers that went missing with his wedding ring attached, and ended with Cameron Norrie suffering a similar mishap, all three pairs of his tennis shoes mysteriously disappearing from the locker room.
Forced to contest the biggest match of his life in unfamiliar footwear, Norrie was at first thoroughly downtrodden by the human howitzer that is Nikoloz Basilashvili. But he is not a man given to dwelling on setbacks. From a set and a break down, Norrie came storming back to claim one of the biggest prizes outside the majors, in the process eclipsing former finalists Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski and Andy Murray to become the first British champion in the California desert.
With his second title of the season, Norrie reaches a career high of 16th in the world rankings, moving into contention for a place at the ATP World Tour Finals in Turin. It has been a remarkable rise. Norrie started the year ranked 74th in the world; he has since won 47 matches, contested six finals, and now stands just 115 points behind ninth-placed Hubert Hurkacz in the race for Turin.
“What an incredible week I‘ve had here,” reflected Norrie after his 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory. “It was a strange match. It was over quite quickly; the last kind of set, I was expecting it to be longer. He made a couple of errors towards the end. I still don’t really know what I’m experiencing. It was an amazing couple of weeks, and I’m so happy with how I treated all the occasions, all the big moments, all the matches.”
Norrie’s ability to navigate challenges extended to the loss of his footwear. The issue had preyed on his mind in the initial stages, he confessed, before frustration gave way to calm acceptance.
“Every day, I left my shoes on top of the locker,” said Norrie. “I think someone, I don’t know who it was, maybe someone from the cleaners or something last night, came through and they threw the three pairs of shoes that I had away. I looked all day. I had everyone looking. I don’t know what the people have against the Brits with stealing the shoes, but I didn’t manage to get them back. Just had to go out there with a fresh pair of shoes. It was difficult.
“I don’t think it mattered too much. Ideally, I like to play with shoes that I’ve been using for maybe five or six hits or practices or warm-ups. I like to have them a little bit used. They feel a bit heavy in general if they’re newer.
“A couple of times I was thinking about it, probably not the best thing. You don’t want to be thinking about your shoes. [It took] a little bit to get used to. At one point I said, ‘All right, these are the shoes I’ve got, I’m just going to focus on what I can control right now.’ I wore them in a little bit, came good in the end.”
Central to the turnaround was an instinctive yet astute shift of approach as Basilashvili served to stay in the second set at 5-4. The powerful Georgian had compiled a sequence of five consecutive games to wipe out an early 3-1 deficit, but Norrie worked his way back into the contest in trademark fashion, remaining patient, extending the rallies, testing his opponent’s mental and physical endurance. But sometimes you have to change a pattern to assert a pattern, and now Norrie switched things up. Moving inside the baseline to caress a drop shot that drew the scrambling Basilashvili into the forecourt, Norrie then scooped a lob over the 29th seed to send him hurtling in the opposite direction. Basilashvili made it back with time to spare, firing a low backhand down the line, but Norrie had snuck into the net and shifted his feet smartly to slot away the resulting volley.
Norrie showed a more spectacular turn of pace to move within two points of the set, racing on to a Basilashvili approach shot to knife a backhand pass down the line. A slew of unforced errors followed from the Georgian, who faded so dramatically that he won only one more game. We always knew Norrie had a big pair of lungs; now we know he has a tennis brain to match. Victory was his deserved reward for a journey of small steps, patient progress and relentless endeavour.
“I think my progression with tennis has been pretty steady,” said Norrie. “Obviously I’ve not been too quick to get up [the rankings]. I went through the challengers fairly quickly. Around kind of 60 to 80, I was stuck there, then made a jump forward. I think I’ve just been working hard and progressing nicely, making small improvements in my game and in my ranking.
“I think honestly doing it this way, getting slowly, slowly better every year, improving little things, I don’t think I’ve missed anything, made any big jumps. I’ve been working extremely hard.”
Basilashvili, who missed three chances to break back after falling behind early in the decider, said he was hampered by physical issues down the home straight, but paid tribute to Norrie’s resolve and mental fortitude.
“I had some problems, health problems, in the third set,” said the Georgian. “I tried to go out, take a breath a bit, but I could not recover. I had it already little bit on previous matches, but now it was too severe in the third set.
“I did not have anything left. I will not say what it is because I don’t want to say, but I did not feel good. But I think Cameron, that he came back in the second set, he deserves it. He was very tough mentally. I could not find in second set how to beat him.”